


Sometimes being an idiot works in your favour!

by musicismagic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cute, First Kiss, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 14:40:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18054434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicismagic/pseuds/musicismagic
Summary: Tony and Stephens first kiss





	Sometimes being an idiot works in your favour!

**Author's Note:**

> This is a tiny thing I had on my laptop that was going to be the start of a much longer fic. However, my plot bunny abandoned me and so I was left with this. It works fine as a little standalone so I thought I might as well post it as it's been in my docs for almost 10 months now.  
> Hope you like it at least a little bit.

"Okay, this has to stop" Tony muttered to himself as he finished spraying his burnt arm with the nanite spray he had been working on for weeks. He watched as the skin slowly changed from red and blistered to pink and smooth, as the tiny bots worked to rapidly heal his wound. His pride at the effectiveness of his creation was overcome by embarrassment over the events of the last two minutes. He rubbed his un-injured hand over his eyes as he continued with his mental chastisement. "You're a grown man, for god sake. You have to stop getting distracted every time the guy so much as smiles at you. You're not some teenager with your first crush."  
Tony's head snapped up at the sound of a portal being opened behind him. He quickly turned to see the guy in question, Dr Stephen Strange, step through with medical supplies ready to begin treating Tonys burns. He stopped abruptly when he saw the discarded aerosol can beside Tony on the table, and the no longer burnt skin of his arm.  
Tony opened his mouth to speak but was frozen - figuratively, but Tony had no doubts that it could be literal if Stephen so chose - by Stephen raising his hand in what was clearly a 'don't-you-dare' gesture.  
The golden sparks of the portal died out as Stephen spoke, his voice deceptively calm and successfully hiding the irritation that was clear in the sorcerers eyes. Stephen put down the supplies he was holding and brought his fingers to rub at the bridge of his nose.  
"Tony, did you seriously just spray our prototype, not-yet-tested-on-humans, nano-technology onto a fresh burn?"  
"Ummmm…."  
"I did advise him against the action, Doctor, but the boss didn't listen." Friday chipped in.  
"Traitor!" Tony muttered, holding Stephens gaze despite the way it made his chest flutter.  
Stephen was entirely responsible for the current situation. Him with his hot, mysterious, hot, smart, hotness. If he hadn't distracted Tony with a totally flirtatious smile from the opposite bench, he would never have lost his grip on the piece of classic car he had been welding and wouldn't have got the jagged burn up his arm that needed medical attention.  
"The stuff needed testing and I was presented with the perfect opportunity. Besides, it's Stark tech, I knew it would work." Tony said with a smirk on his lips, which died pretty quickly as he lost feeling across his entire body and he collapsed helplessly forwards.  
*****  
Stephen flung his arms out to catch Tony, and the cloak detached from Stephens shoulders to cocoon the unconscious man and float him over to the couch. Stephen took Tonys pulse, and was relieved to find it steady and strong, and watched his chest rise and fall evenly, suggesting his breathing was fine.  
Stephen allowed himself to give into temptation and ran his fingers through Tonys mop of unruly dark hair, whispering as he luxuriated in the feeling for a few seconds.  
"You'd better be okay, dumbass."  
Then he moved to the nearest screen and called Bruce and the medical team.

Four hours later the medical team had cleared out to their designated floor, leaving Tony in the small medical bay on the private lab level he shared with the select few whose company he could tolerate for any length of time. In case of emergency the medical team were less than 1 minute away via the nearest elevator, but everyone knew that unless his life was in immediate danger Tony would rather be anywhere but a hospital - or even a place resembling a hospital. Bruce and Stephen were satisfied that the medical teams assessment and prognosis were correct and that Tony should suffer no lasting damage from his latest bout of self-sacrificing idiocy, so they were both trying to continue with some of their latest projects. However, Tonys still form kept drawing their eyes.

Tony was always in motion, always dancing, or singing, or chatting with Friday or building something miraculous in either burnished metals or glowing virtual reality. He was an explosion of sound and colour, even without the weaponised red and gold suit of his heroic alter-ego. Seeing him so still and quiet was unsettling; especially for Stephen, who had never witnessed it before. Bruce was a little less affected, but only because he'd been there to see some of the times when a battle had stolen consciousness away from the armoured avenger.

The Cloak seemed to be just as unsettled as Stephen. It kept detaching itself from the sorcerers shoulders and floating over to where Tony lay. Occasionally it would lift a hem and give the unconscious man a small prod, but when it received no response it would drift listlessly back to rest on Stephens shoulders once more. After about the fifth time this happened Stephen dropped his tablet to the desk and put his head in his hands.  
"Would you please just make up your mind?"  
The cloak ruffled its collar in indignation before swooping over to rest fully over Tony and seemingly settling in for the long haul.  
Stephen couldn't help feeling a little jealous.

Their first meeting was pretty rocky, fear making them both snarky and argumentative. But even at that time Stephen had appreciated how Tony handled himself whilst also watching everyone else's backs. Then the Time Stone had called out to him, encouraging him to use it to explore the future. What he saw filled him with guilt for ever thinking of Tony as just an ego with shiny toys. Watching Tony fight over and over and over again to keep Earth alive. Watching him sacrifice himself to save Peter in some realities, and to save Stephen in others. Sometimes even throwing himself at Thanos so the guardians could be safe despite knowing them for barely hours.

It all showed Stephen that Tony was so much more than anyone else he had ever met. He was brave, selfless, shrewd, brilliant, determined and oh so full of heart. He'd been hopelessly in love ever since Tonys hands were the ones that caught him after his foray through time. He'd be lying if he said that giving up the Time Stone was just about saving the universe. Even if Tony was not the man who would tip the balance, Stephens pretty damn sure he would have saved him anyway.

He was secretly glad when Tony and Pepper had broken up only a few weeks after their victory over Thanos. He felt terrible for feeling glad, but still a small flutter of hope wriggled in his chest every time he saw the headline "Stark-Potts wedding cancelled". He was surprised when Tony sought him out a few days later to discuss his joining the new Avengers team, but couldn't hide his smile when a quick 'business meeting' turned into hours of good natured banter and science talk. Wong had been teasing him relentlessly ever since.

Over the next few weeks they saw more and more of each other, until Tony came to him with an idea of a medical application to his nanotech that he and Bruce wanted Stephens consultation on. Stephen was delighted to meet and work with Dr Bruce Banner and for 12 days the men had worked together side by side theorising, developing, simulating and finally producing the first few canisters of their field nano-med kit.

Stephen gave up trying to work and instead moved a roller chair over to sit next to Tonys bed. He reached forward to rub a corner of his cloak between his fingers, a gesture of apology and an unspoken request for comfort that the cloak had never yet refused. And it didn't this time either. Rubbing its collar along Tonys cheekbone in a move that Stephen was desperate to try for himself, it rose from around Tonys body and nestled once again onto Stephens shoulders, settling some of its folds in his lap and wrapping gently around his hands as both man and material sat guardian over Tony Stark.

*****  
Tony had never been one to wake slowly. Even as a child he went from 0 - 60 in a matter of seconds, but after Afghanistan it had become far worse. He would snap back to consciousness and immediately his heart would be racing as he tried to establish his surroundings. The lasting trauma of that time was still etched into his soul, and every new life threatening injury he sustained made the cut a little deeper.  
Right now, however, he was not waking quickly. He was floating gently back to consciousness, aware of his surroundings in only the most abstract sense that it was warm, soft and gently lit. He could hear voices. Not clearly enough to make out words but enough to recognise that they were voices of people he trusted.  
Slowly, the voices became clearer, although he still did not open his eyes.  
"… won't be long now."  
"You've been saying that for three days! How much longer is 'not long', Bruce?"  
"Stephen, you need to rest! I don't know exactly how much longer he'll be asleep, but that's all it is. He's asleep. There's no damage left! He's the least physically injured he's been since I've known him!"  
"Then why isn't he awake yet?"  
Tonys heart tripped as he heard a very familiar sound, a cross between a sigh and growl, that Bruce had previously reserved only for moments when Tony was driving him crazy. Hearing it directed at someone else made him want to smile, and he was thrilled to find his facial muscles responding.  
"Stephen, look!"  
There was a small flutter of movement and Tony felt a trembling hand take his.  
"Tony?"  
Tony smiled some more and tried to open his eyes. They were heavy, but they did as they were bid.  
He saw Stephen looking down on him, and frankly…  
"You look like shit, Strange."  
Bruce laughed from the other side of the bed, and Tony flicked his eyes to his friend.  
"You don't look much better, Brucie-Bear!"  
Bruce laughed some more, before starting to poke and prod at Tony. Stephen let go of Tonys hand while Bruce went through a now familiar routine of checks to make sure Tony was really ok.  
When it was finished and Bruce confirmed that Tony seemed none the worse for his three day nap, the two men stood shoulder to shoulder by Tonys bed and stared down at their patient.  
"Well docs, am I gonna make it?" Tony tried to joke, but Stephen and Bruces faces just turned stony.  
"Do you have any idea how badly that could have gone for you Tony?" Bruce asked, his expression still held somewhere between frustration and worry.  
"You used an untested technology on yourself, on an open and bleeding wound." Stephen added, frustration growing more evident as he spoke. "It could have killed you!!! If there had been even one wrong line of code in their programming, even one digit out of order, you could have died."  
Tony sat himself up a little in the bed to face his friends more directly.  
"What happened?"  
"What do you remember?" "I burnt myself, sprayed the nanites on the burn then passed out."  
"The nanites worked on the burn perfectly, exactly as they were supposed to, but they didn't stop there. They kept working once they made it into your bloodstream, and they fixed everything." Bruce handed Tony a tablet showing two body scan images side by side. On the left was an image that was familiar to Tony, with healed breaks and fractures throughout his chest, arms and legs, not to mention scar tissues and organ damage, all highlighted in yellow flashing boxes. The scan on the right showed none of these defects. There was no evidence of past breaks, no organ damage and even as he looked at the scans Tony became aware that the usual pulling and discomfort that came from the scars and skin grafts where the arc reactor used to be was nowhere to be felt. Stephen came a little closer and leaned over to zoom the scans in on Tonys head. "We think you lost consciousness when they reached your brain and found a contusion on your occipital lobe. They must have knocked you out to repair the damage safely." Stephen told him, his voice softening a little. "When did you even get a head injury? Last mission you went on was two days before to help Peter with that building collapse and you said you weren't hurt?"  
"Oh, well I might have taken a support beam to the head, but, you know, we were busy with science stuff so it didn't seem important."  
*****  
That was the moment something within Stephen Strange broke.  
He stood up to his full height and strode a few feet away rubbing at his temples with both hands.  
Bruce (who had been waiting for something to happen between these two idiots thank you very much) simply shrugged at Tonys questioning look and made a very quick escape before either a serious make out session or an attempted murder could take place.  
"It didn't seem important. 'Oh look at me, I'm Tony Stark and I whine like a puppy if I so much as stub my toe but drop half a building on my head and I'm totally fine.'" Stephen turned and walked back to the bed. "You're an idiot."  
"Awwww, doc. Were you worried about me?"  
Stephen couldn't help himself. He reached out his trembling fingers and cupped Tonys face.  
"More than you will ever know."  
Tony just stared, wide-eyed, until the silence made Stephen draw his hands back. He was trying desperately to think of some kind of witty cover when he felt Tonys hands gently close over his own.  
"Is that so, Doc?" Tonys mouth was quirked up in his trademark sly grin, but his eyes held something else. There was hope, fear, insecurity and affection in those beautiful brown eyes and Stephens very last shred of hesitance left him. He leaned forward slowly, telegraphing his intent to allow Tony chance to stop him. Instead Tony leaned forward and met him halfway; their lips brushing gently, chastely, but with an undercurrent of passion unlike anything Stephen had ever felt from such an innocent press of lips.  
Tony drew back first, the smile on his face relaxed and happy and making him look 10 years younger.  
He opened his mouth to speak but Stephen surged forward and claimed his lips again.  
Tony gasped in a sigh at the much firmer press of lips, and Stephen slipped his tongue into Tonys mouth. They kissed fervently. So often kisses are described as a fight, a battle, a struggle for dominance, but this was something else. This was a beautiful dance, un-choreographed and spontaneous, each partner feeling the other and moving to accommodate and complement.  
Tonys hands were gripping Stephens waist, taking some of his weight given the awkward way the taller man was leaning over the bed to reach the kiss. Stephens hands were cradling Tonys skull. Long fingers were pressing into the back of his neck as Stephens thumbs traced the curve across cheekbone to ear to jaw and back. They kissed until they were gasping for air, separating briefly to gaze into each other's eyes while they refilled their lungs, before diving back in again.  
Eventually, they parted once again, this time Stephen brought his forehead to rest against Tonys.  
"I love you, Tony."  
He kept his eyes closed not wanting to see the look on Tonys face but no longer able to keep the truth of this inside.  
Tonys hands left his waist and Stephen began to pull away, until he felt Tonys once calloused but now deliciously smooth hands cup his face. A light kiss was pressed to his lips.  
"Thank god."  
That made Stephen open his eyes, to find Tony's staring back with so much love and warmth.

"Because I love you too."


End file.
